So Say We All

by Mark A. Altman

  JAMIE BAMBER

  The nutshell of my experience playing Lee was the thing that I talked to Michael Rymer about all the time: just trying to avoid him being this slightly priggish Boy Scout, and to find steel in him. And not one that is just reciting what he should be doing, because he had a tendency at times to be a contrarian—to rebel against those around him for the sake of it, because he’s got this problem in his past and this unresolved blame about the disintegration of his family and his brother’s death. And to blame parents for things that happened in your upbringing is boring to listen to, because everyone does it. It’s one of those tropes we all have a moment of doing, and if you keep doing that, any drama becomes tedious very quickly, like a boring friend who will not leave something alone when you go to the pub. You always have the same conversation about the same things.

  So we were very keen to move him along from that, and different people in the creative process had different ways of expressing what Lee was within the show. David Eick called him the conscience of the show for a bit, and that’s something that scared me as well, because, again, you can be stuck in a trope. But my thought for Lee is he was on a voyage of self-discovery. He was trying to find out who he actually is and was, because he didn’t know. He was defined only by relationships with others. He was defined as the son, as the potential girlfriend lover, and he was in a world that he never intended to be. He was on that battlestar for one afternoon begrudgingly, to fulfill a ceremonial function, but after that, he saw his life as anywhere but in the military with his dad, with Kara Thrace. He had no intention of being anywhere around these people. And that was the key to Lee, is he was someone trapped in his idea of Hell, which is this environment, but then realizing that his own rebellion had to come second when the survival of all the remaining human beings depended on him. Because he had a unique set of skills and he was there. He has to put his ego aside gradually, and I think that was the battle for Lee. It’s sort of ego versus service, and you see that all the way through. He has this strongly defined sense of right and wrong and what should happen, and what shouldn’t happen, but gradually he learns to put that aside in order to serve the needs of the greatest number of people.

  MARK VERHEIDEN

  It was trying to give him an identity that was more than Adama’s son/fighter pilot. What unique thing was he going to bring to the Battlestar world. Jamie is a great actor, so it was never an issue about that. It was what could we do to make what the world he was in stand out.

  JAMIE BAMBER

  It was a struggle, because in a show like Battlestar, with so many wonderful characters and so many great actors, in a way we all are fighting for our corner of the story and to keep our little corner alive. I felt sometimes that Lee was not the most interesting character at the beginning. He didn’t pull off the great moves in the Viper, he was by-the-book, and he was trying to keep people together. He wasn’t the automatic choice to be the talisman of the fleet or anything. Gradually I learned the gift was to play that slightly misunderstood, stoic type who’s not yet found his outlet and doesn’t shoot from the hip, and thinks very hard about things and doesn’t have the quip that’s going to sort of button the conversation. But I never found the character easy. It was always a struggle, and I think that’s fitting for someone who was fighting for his life, obviously, and the lives of those around him, but also for his identity within this changing world.

  MICHAEL ANGELI

  It seemed like he was always playing second fiddle to either Adama—his father—or Mary’s character. He was on equal footing with Starbuck, but there was something kind of impassive for a long time about his character. It was tough. It was hard to find things for him to do. We failed a couple of times. When we went to Cloud 9, we had him running around in the walls of the ship fighting terrorists like the Die Hard guy. The intention was to give him something to do, but it didn’t work. Until we decided to do the trial and have him represent Baltar in season three; that’s where it kind of clicked. That’s where it got better for him. It worked for his character, because he wasn’t like Starbuck. He wasn’t this sort of masculine warrior guy. There was something a little touchy-feely about him that we were trying to rid ourselves of. Having him use words to fight and to be in an unpopular situation where he’s defending fucking Baltar! It gave him some controversy and for the audience you saw him in a different light.

  JAMIE BAMBER

  Basically I think the traditional role of the young masculine lead was taken by Kara in Ron’s brilliant gender flip. That left Lee in a bit of a vacuum in terms of traditional male protagonists. So as an actor I think I struggled to find what it was that meant for Lee and his story role. I think the writers did, too. Initially I fought against it. It took a while to realize that the identity crisis is the opportunity. That was Lee’s story. It was what makes Ron so good. Once we found that, then Lee becomes emblematic of what it is to be a male in today’s world, when our traditional role models no longer work and we have to find a new definition of masculinity that includes feminine traits. Certainly with Kara, Lee is the silent, patient, traditionally feminine, passive partner. In all his relationships within the show, Lee is redefining and carving a new path than the one set for him. Consciously or not. By the end it was something we were aware of. I don’t think we were at the beginning, because the focus was on changing Starbuck to a woman, and where that left Lee was not really addressed.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  Later on we tried to make him more of a marine or a special forces guy. And then eventually he kind of circles all the way back to politics and, ironically, becomes the president. But the truth is, you can plan all of this out, but the show demands something else. As a showrunner, one of the things you have to be able to do is be willing to recognize when that happens. This is what I thought it was going to be, but the stories are not working so well, so go another course. What’s a better way to go? And being able to do that on the fly and just kind of reinvent the direction that the show’s going.

  MARK VERHEIDEN

  Eventually it felt like taking him into the civilian side was what made the most sense in that it would disappoint his father “a little bit,” but that he seemed to have a more humanitarian streak in him, so he would be drawn to the Roslin side of the equation. I also really enjoyed when he essentially was becoming Baltar’s defense attorney later on. That seemed like the best fit, which came a little later, so it’s the journey from fighter pilot to role in Roslin’s government as the humanitarian voice in some of the discussions that were going on.

  JAMIE BAMBER

  It was sort of an outpouring of everything that he had bottled up all the way through. And then there was something of the truth in that, that he’s defined as a son all the way through, but he remembers his grandfather and there’s an idea that he could have been anything and something completely different in a world that had continued. In my mind, he was about to quit the military and do other things. So there’s a lot of resentment attached to him still being in uniform, and then obviously when the opportunity opens up for him to leave the uniform behind and go and do other things, and then he gets the big court sequence where he represents the person that he despises the most in the world. It represents something, that he’s discovered pragmatism. He’s discovered a side of himself that he’s never been allowed to express before, as a giver and follower of orders.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  A lot of things weren’t jelling for him. In “Resurrection Ship” there’s a point where he’s floating in space, watching a battle play out. We kept reaching in the writers’ room and thought, “We’re going to turn the character in this beat.” We thought, “If he goes through this experience, if he’s hanging out there facing his own mortality, watching a war happen around him, and thinks maybe he’s going to die, would that change him? What would that do to a person? He might come back from that experience changed.” And so, we were hoping that that might be a pivot point for him. You see there is some
aftermath of him lying in a bunk and him reflecting on the idea. We started talking about him becoming a marine. We were saying maybe he stops being a pilot and goes totally hard-core and becomes one of the special forces/marines in the fleet, and he’s more associated with those guys and he’s not a flier anymore, because that’s following in his father’s footsteps and it’s also what Starbuck is all about, so then maybe he’s looking for his own path. Ultimately we sort of started moving in that direction in subsequent episodes, but that didn’t quite pay off for us either.

  It was very frustrating, because we loved Jamie, you know? We loved Jamie Bamber. He’s great and we liked the character but we kept getting to these places where you felt like the role of the pilot, the kick-ass fighter pilot, is sort of taken by Starbuck, like I said. Laura’s the political person, Adama’s the military commander, and Lee’s role as a pilot and as a character, as sort of the fabric of the show, we kept losing focus of him. We kept looking for bigger solutions. We never gave up on it. Toward the end of the series, once Lee became vice president and ultimately president at the very end, it felt like that was a good path for him. But the only other way he could get on that path really was once you started taking Laura out of it.

  Serving as executive officer aboard Galactica is Saul Tigh, a career soldier who fought in the Cylon war forty years earlier. Following the war, he wandered around aimlessly, eventually ending up aboard a freighter making runs between Caprica and Picon, which is where he met Adama, whom he bonded with immediately. Later, Adama rejoined the fleet and Tigh began drifting (and drinking) his way through life. But when Adama became a squadron leader, he pulled Tigh—who immediately cleaned up his act—along. Eventually they ended up together on the Galactica.

  Notes the bible, “Saul is a fractured and damaged man. He’s seen more combat than anyone aboard Galactica, including Adama, and the experience scarred him deeply. He’s been avoiding responsibility ever since he returned to the Fleet, and if not for the patronage of Adama, he probably would’ve washed out years ago. But beyond the drinking and irresponsible behavior, there still lurks the man who fought Cylons hand to hand while standing in pools of blood made by his shipmates. Deep down, Saul Tigh is a warrior. The question is, can he reach down that deeply once again or has time passed him by?”

  Canadian actor Michael Hogan has enjoyed a diversified career in a variety of mediums, including stage, radio, film, television, and even opera. While he appeared on a number of television series, Battlestar Galactica represents his longest time in a single role.

  MICHAEL HOGAN

  I almost didn’t audition for Battlestar. I didn’t have anything against the original show—I might have seen it walking through someone’s living room—but it’s not that I watched it or knew much about it. We saw that Michael Rymer was directing. My wife and I, we’re Canadian, we do a lot of character-driven, low-budget independent films, and as we were watching Angel Baby, we went, “Wow, man. Who did this? What is this? This is an Australian film.” And then the credit was, “Written, directed, produced by Michael Rymer.” Who is this man? And then a few years later the audition for Battlestar came up and directing was Michael Rymer. Are you kidding me? And then Edward James Olmos is playing Adama? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s going on here? So I went in to audition.

  Now, Rymer loves working. He loves what he does. He loves creating with people that are of kindred spirit, and he loves working with actors. As the actor when you go in to audition, whether you get it or not, you get to read these great lines and you get to play for twenty minutes and then off you go. Whether you get it or not, the director and everybody else has had this great experience of working on this. That’s what happened in the room with Rymer. Then a few days later I got a callback, so I went in. Once you start the callback, then we’re getting serious here. This could be something. And then, after having spent the time with him, Rymer said, “I’m satisfied with the audition, but the network…” I guess the people down south had trouble that I’m too Canadian. Had trouble with the accent. I said, “Oh, there’s no Canadians in space? Is that the case?” So I lost the accent and evened it out and ended up getting the role.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  There is something about Saul Tigh, this crotchety, abrasive guy who somehow you never dislike. No matter how much of a son of a bitch he was, there was always something appealing about him, and always something that you liked about him, and always something where you kind of saw his flaws. The flaws were worn clearly and obviously, but you wanted to forgive him for it over and over again, even when he was doing just really stupid things or behaving really badly or breaking trust with people or whatever. That’s a really important characteristic in that character. Michael was a really easy, funny guy. He likes to drink, he likes to hang out, he likes to go to parties, he’s very social, he’s very friendly, very outgoing. You always heard his voice on the set. You always heard him cracking up or telling jokes about something. He and Eddie got along like gangbusters. They were just really tight, really good mates, and I think they hung out and did all kinds of stuff.

  MICHAEL HOGAN

  In the beginning, they didn’t know what they were going to do with Tigh. They knew they were decommissioning the ship; it was going to be a museum. And there was alcohol. But that’s basically all they knew during the miniseries. So I walked into the world right then. I’d been acting for thirty-seven years before Battlestar Galactica came along, so I’d been to National Theatre School, and in the early seventies we created, through local initiative, program grants, we created these alternative theaters in Toronto, and around Canada, and then slowly started doing film and television. I’d been around the block and I’d had a few series myself and had a great time. So when Battlestar Galactica came along, I was very aware. I think Eddie, Mary, and myself, being the oldest people in the cast, not that I equate whatever, but as being veterans of that, we all went, “Whoa! This is special.” Of course, the younger people would think that it is now, but we knew that it was special then.

  MARK VERHEIDEN

  Michael Hogan was kind of like Aaron Douglas and Tyrol, though more seasoned, in that he brought an everyman quality. Saul Tigh’s the grizzly guy you want at your side when you’re going into battle. You sense the utter loyalty he had to Adama and the fleet. You could always give Michael anything and you’d know you’d get something better than you’d imagined when you wrote it.

  DAVID EICK

  In the miniseries, or maybe the first episode, you see Tigh measuring the precious few drops left in his liquor bottle, right? It’s, like, “Holy shit, you’ve got a total alcoholic here.” Now the world’s been blown up. Where the fuck is he going to get his whiskey, right? It was great drama for that scene. You were forced to sympathize with the alcoholic, but soon after we had this decision to make: “Okay, do we want Tigh to be a dry drunk? Do we want Tigh to clean up and not have an alcoholism problem at all or do we want to say they find some bottles of booze on a ship sometimes?” The truth is, we love Tigh being drunk. So that’s what we did.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  The other thing is that Michael reads older on camera than he was. He was bald, and prematurely gray in the hair he has. He’s not quite as old as he seemed to be, which was a little good in terms of his relationship with Adama. I liked that Adama had this friend who was a pain in the ass and difficult and an alcoholic, whom a lot of other people would never keep around, but only Adama would. Adama saw value in him that nobody else did.

  Moore’s description of Lieutenant Sharon Valerii reads, “Sharon’s first memory is that of crawling across the artificial grass in her backyard toward the family cat, Mr. Perkles. It’s a vivid memory, one that she occasionally revisits in her dreams. It’s also completely fake.” She has a whole history leading up to her joining flight school and eventually getting her first assignment, on the Galactica, where she was aboard for nearly a year when the Cylons launched their attack. Says Moore, “Her relationship with her fl
ight officer—Helo—was a close one, and the older man watched out for her as she struggled to make her deck qualifications. They almost pursued a romantic relationship as well, but then Sharon hooked up with Chief Tyrol. Helo was aware of the affair and the impropriety of it, but he guarded her privacy jealously and let it be known that he would exact a price from any pilot who caused trouble for her.”

  Most importantly, he continues, “Sharon is unaware of her true nature; unaware that, far from being the daughter of a mining family, she is in reality a Cylon sleeper agent, implanted into Colonial society.… Sensitive and shy, she puts on a tough-chick front for the benefit of those around her. In Tyrol she had found a man who is quite literally her first true love. What Sharon is doing on Galactica and why she was infiltrated into Colonial society will remain a mystery for some time.”

  A Canadian-American actress, Park had appeared on a variety of television series in guest-starring roles, among them The Outer Limits (the nineties remake of the sixties classic), Dark Angel, and Stargate SG-1. She was also a series regular on the 2001–05 drama Edgemont.

  RONALD D. MOORE

  Grace has an intense vulnerability about her. There is something about her person on camera that you feel protective of, you feel like there’s a wound there, you feel like she’s open emotionally in a way that a lot of people aren’t on camera. She brought that to the character.

  GRACE PARK

  (actress, “Lieutenant Sharon ‘Athena’ Agathon / Lieutenant Sharon ‘Boomer’ Valerii”)